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“Blaise Zabini, get over here right now!” Malfoy shouted, distracting Hermione from her reading, a fascinating insight into the watering schedules that yielded the best, most even and aesthetically pleasing produce. “I’ve got to show you the progress in the garden. The vegetable beds are much improved already from last week, I tell you.”
After approximately three hundred thousand interruptions of a similar kind in the past five years, Hermione had absolutely had it.
“Oh I’ll show you an improved vegetable bed,” she growled, snapping her book shut and jumping to her feet. She skulked over to Malfoy and his friends, who were standing just outside the greenhouse, and gripped her wand tightly.
“Oi, Granger, what’s your problem?” Zabini called out at her as she approached.
Theo Nott waved his hands furiously at Zabini, as if telling him to be quiet. “Better be nice to her,” he said, ”or she’ll throw some kind of hex at you. She can be a right violent witch if she wants to be!”
This assessment appeased Hermione ever so slightly, but she returned to her rage momentarily–as soon as her eyes turned to Malfoy.
“I’ve just got one question for you all,” she said, forcing a false air of calm into her voice as she levelled a glare at Zabini, Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Nott. “Do you think that, after five years of irritatingly taking over this spot at the community garden, assaulting my ears with your shrieking and idiotic jokes, you’ve even contributed much to the place?”
“Come to think of it, we have,” Malfoy immediately shot back, smirking. “Our glorious presences, that’s what we’ve contributed. Everything at the garden simply glows when we’re around. Quite beneficent of us, if you ask me.”
Hermione was fuming. She clutched her wand so hard her knuckles turned white, jabbing it in their direction for emphasis. “You’re interrupting my reading to accomplish absolutely nothing! Why must you come here, day after day, week after week, year after year, just to bother me every time I’m here? Nothing about your presence is appreciated, and we would all be better off if you just stayed away!”
“Now, that’s just too far, Granger,” Parkinson cut in, all condescension. “We’re just minding our own business, helping out at the garden. Not very kind of you to stomp in and yell at us for doing good in the community.”
“Helping out, my foot!” Hermione screamed, her anger boiling over. “All right then, if you’re such wonderful people, I’ll help you. You’ll make PERFECT plants in the garden, then, since you’re so bloody impeccable yourselves!”
Before anyone could respond, she worked a complex hex on Zabini, Parkinson, and Malfoy, finishing her work with a flourish of her wand. She took a spin, giddy after the success of her new spell, and noticed Nott behind her gasping for breath.
He was wheezing quite loudly. Hermione was afraid he was having some sort of attack. Upon closer inspection, it turned out he was. An attack of laughter, that is.
He was cackling to no end, looking between the three of his friends–now transformed into garden plants. “Granger, you’ve really outdone yourself. Brilliant, I must say!”
She nodded at him in recognition, appreciating his enjoyment of the situation and apparent lack of desire to turn his friends back into people. She had honestly expected condemnation as opposed to commendation, the three being his best and closest friends that he never hesitated to defend, but was pleasantly surprised at his allowance made for hilarity at their expense.
But before she could respond, a weak little voice called out at her. “Granger, what have you done to me?”
She made her way over to Malfoy, cracking a smile as she leaned over to speak to him.
“Ooh Tomato Malfoy, you’re just too cute!” she cooed, partly to taunt him, but also partly because he was, in fact, cute, and she could finally say it out loud. Yes, she admitted to herself, she’d done her fair share of longing stares in addition to self-righteous glares at Malfoy over the years. She was now familiar with all his best looks, her favourite being when he smiled. When he really, truly smiled, letting down his guard to enjoy a moment, Hermione’s heart brightened, enjoying it with him from afar.
At present, he was a shockingly adorable sight, though, turned into a little heirloom cherry tomato–because of course he’d turn into some purebred plant–heavily laden with shiny red fruits and housed in an ornately decorated pot.
The best part was that he could still talk, but only in a highly pitched, squeaky, quiet kind of voice. Hermione supposed this was what all tomatoes would sound like, if they talked, minus the whining tone Malfoy seemed to have retained.
“Why’d you leave Theo human?” Malfoy’s tiny little voice demanded. “Curse him, too, while you’re at it! I don’t want to suffer alone.”
“Not to worry, Malfoy, you’re hardly alone!” she reassured him in a sarcastically cheery tone. “Let me bring you your other friends.”
She eyed over two plant pots, each with large green leaves and abundant produce ready for harvest, shrill voices emanating from somewhere in their thick foliage.
“Look at you, Blaise Zucchini, you adorable little thing,” she squealed as she carried over one of the plants, which shrieked in protest and all but wiggled out of her hands. “Say hi to little Tomato Malfoy! Let me set you down–there you go!”
She turned back to collect the other pot, which was bouncing side to side emphatically. “And Eggplantsy Parkinson, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you. Here we go, the Slytherins all reunited.”
She nodded triumphantly, but then, lest they didn’t get the joke, she decided to detail the logic behind her transformations. “My holiday to Canada last month was quite helpful. In addition to my research on their agricultural practices, I learned all about what they call these crops–tomato pronounced with an “ay” fits Draco perfectly, zucchini instead of courgette is just right for Blaise, and Parkinson! Oh, Parkinson, they call aubergines ‘eggplants’ there, and you make a perfect Eggplantsy Parkinson, don’t you agree.”
Hermione could have sworn the three plants visibly withered after this humiliating desecration of their names. Nott’s laughter only got louder.
“The names–” he doubled over, unable to speak. “Eggplantsy–how could you–I mean, that’s just genius!”
“Thank you very much, Nott,” Hermione replied, finally turning her attention to him properly. “I trust you won’t be hexing me in return?”
“Oh, no, of course not!” he assured her between wholehearted chuckles. “This is the best fun I’ve had here since, well, ever! I bloody hate gardening, and I’d much rather be gazing at all the magnificent art in Nott Manor than all this manure-enriched compost. But yet, here I am.”
He’d said it all rather magnanimously, but this set off alarm bells in Hermione’s head. She’d been confident in the Slytherins’ complete reform, but were they somehow up to no good after all? Perhaps they were gathering information on household staples for nefarious reasons. Were they planning a takeover of the community garden only to offer it to the Magical community rather than the Muggles it was intended to serve? Or worse yet, were they slowly, painstakingly poisoning the crops? She wouldn’t put it past them to play the long game.
“How do you mean? If you detest gardening so much, just don’t come anymore. It’s not that hard of a connection to make, and I’d much rather you stopped bothering me, in any case.”
“You know Draco forces us to come here, don’t you?” Nott said with a sigh. “Nobody gives a crap about gardening, including him. What he gives a crap about is seeing you.”
Hermione blushed furiously as soon as the words hit her. “Wh–what could you possibly…I mean, what kind of–my goodness that’s ridiculous thought. He despises me so much that he has to come here multiple times per week to glare at the object of his hatred?”
Nott shook his head, looking rather disappointed in Hermione.
“Granger, how much clearer do I have to make it?” he said, scanning to check that he was out of earshot of Malfoy. He wasn’t sure what the hearing capacity of a tomato plant was, having never studied it before, but assumed it would not likely be much better than a person’s.
“It’s not clear at all to me,” she retorted, having recovered herself sufficiently. “You’re implying something completely fantastical with no basis in reality, so please do explain further.”
“He bloody hates gardening. He’s useless at it but keeps trying to learn. Any guesses why?” Nott paused for a moment, shaking his head when Hermione did not contribute any conjectures.
“Didn’t think so. Pity, I thought you were supposed to be such a genius, but it seems you’re not all you were cracked up to be. Nonetheless, to spell it all out for you, he’s completely mad for you. Plans his week around your gardening schedule. Makes us all come here with him so it looks less conspicuous. Looks at you most of the time, rather than doing any actual work. It’s quite horrific, really–wouldn’t you agree? And I’m bloody tired of it, so I’m doing him a favour by ending it here.”
“I– oh,” Hermione said, unable to form an intelligent response to Nott’s casual confession on behalf of Malfoy. “Are you quite certain?”
She was not particularly close to Nott, but, oddly enough for a Slytherin, he did have a reputation for honesty. He was known to be conniving and sarcastic with a penchant for the theatrical, but brutally honest all the same. And he was one of Malfoy’s closest friends. So, his words gave her pause.
“Yes, Granger, I am absolutely sure of it. He’s told us all multiple times how he feels about you and how he knows it’s pointless because you’ll never feel the same,” he intoned dully. But then, his face brightened as a thought came to him.
“Say, proving him wrong is awfully fun, isn’t it?” he pondered, as if talking to himself. “Imagine the shock he’d get if he was to be wrong on this, an issue of such grand consequence. For all I know, he could’ve gravely miscalculated, and the feelings are quite happily returned. You just never know. And he was right, everything does glow when he’s around–including you…”
The fun was over. This ended now. Hermione spun back to the three plant pots and waved her wand emphatically, chanting the words to undo the charm she’d worked over them.
An irritated Parkinson and Zabini materialised with a pop, shouting protests at their treatment, along with a rather flustered Malfoy.
“Granger, I think we need to talk,” Malfoy said, his face flushed pink, almost resembling the tomatoes he’d been moments ago. He gestured for Hermione to follow him to a more private area behind the toolshed. Turns out, perhaps a tomato could hear from quite a distance, after all, because Hermione doubted he would deprive her of the joyous experience of being insulted in front of others.
“What Nott said,” he began before Hermione could say anything. “He had no right to. It’s not his place, and you weren’t meant to find out like that.”
“So it’s true?” she said, gaping at him. “How was I meant to find out, then, since you’ve been sticking your pointy little face where it isn’t wanted and interrupting my peaceful gardening for nearly five years with no sign of such inclinations? Here I’ve been, distracted by your stupidly–”
She trailed off, face reddening with her almost-admission of her own feelings. She was going to say ‘stupidly good looking face,’ and was glad she’d caught it in time, saving herself from the embarrassment.
“I don’t bloody know! Probably never,” he muttered. “But now that it’s all in the open, let’s have it out. I can’t tell if you hate me, tolerate me, or like me even the slightest bit, and I can’t stand it.
You’ve firmly planted yourself in my mind, my thoughts, and even my stupid heart. You’re smart, feisty, and yes, you’re absolutely gorgeous. Put me out of my misery, please, Granger. Yes or no, will you go on a date with me, in a normal location, not surrounded by dirt and plants and bugs buzzing about all over?”
He swatted a bug from near her face, emphasising his point. Hermione caught his hand in hers, and held it.
“All right, Malfoy, I will,” she said softly.
Malfoy grinned and squeezed her hand tightly, quite speechless with joy. It may have been the best day of his life.
“But only just to prove you wrong,” she smirked, dropping his hand and twirling back to rejoin the others with a toss of her hair.
Artwork credit goes to the lovely MalumInFic , for whom I am incredibly grateful, and astounded that she managed to turn my silly idea into wonderful art! Thank you!